Over the past few months we’ve been getting hints that 20th Century Fox will be making a sequel to X-Men: First Class. In an interview with The New York Times co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment Tom Rothman praised the film for being “different and original”, with mention of a follow-up, and James McAvoy recent said he’s shared story ideas with director Matthew Vaughn.
Now, while promoting the DVD and Blu-ray release of X-Men: First Class in the UK, Jason Flemyng (Azazel) has revealed the sequel is currently in the writing stage.
From Digital Spy:
“There was a benchmark that they had to hit box office-wise before they could start writing the next one, which they’ve started. We’ll just see how the DVD goes and then fingers crossed I’ll be bright red again by next summer.”
Flemyng also admitted that he hopes a potential sequel will give him the opportunity to work more with Michael Fassbender, who plays villain Magento.
“I am so in his gang [for the sequel]. There’s one shot at the end of the film [with Magneto] and I was like, ‘Please let me be in the shot!’ And there I was. If there is a sequel, I have to be there.”
There’s still a few ‘ifs’ in there as 20th Century Fox haven’t made any official announcements, but if they have started writing hopefully Matthew Vaughn and his writing partner Jane Goldman are involved.
X-Men: First Class made $350 million worldwide at the box office, and another $45 million on DVD/Blu-ray in the US. Adding international DVD/Blu-ray sales and TV rights etc. the film will end up making around $450 million+ in total, which is enough for sequel to move forward. The cast are moving onto big things (Fassbender could end up with an Oscar nomination this year, Jennifer Lawrence has The Hunger Games, and Nicholas Hoult will be seen in Jack the Giant Killer) so the next film has the potential to make even more of an impact at the box office.
